Electronic structure and cytotoxic activity of "half-mustard type" phenothiazines by MM3 and PM3 methods.

Among 54 cancer cell lines, colon-cancer cells were the most sensitive to six "half-mustard type" phenothiazines [7-12], followed by leukemia, melanoma, prostate-, CNS-, breast-, lung-, renal and ovarian cancer cells. The distribution of electrostatic potential (ESP) of "half-mustard type" phenothiazines [7-12] suggests that the ESP surface of urea site is important for the interaction between "half-mustard type" phenothiazines [7-12] and target cancer cell structures (or DNA base sequence). Actually, the urea site of "half-mustard type" phenothiazines displayed extensive variability in the energy of lone pair orbital and net atomic charges of N1, 0 and N3 atoms.